Born
in London in 1928 of Jewish heritage, I grew up during the Second World
War and knew that members of my extended family were murdered in the Holocaust.
The puzzlement at how this could happen affected me from my earliest years.

How
could an otherwise civilized society like Germany become so completely
immersed in what appeared to be a madman leading a nation in a trance?
This was no ordinary madness; trains ran on time, children went to school,
the opera performed—the veneer of patriotic normalcy was everywhere
and yet the people fought to the death for the beast from the pit. Hitler
might have enveloped the entire world had he and his minions not been
conquered by force—and recall that beating him was very difficult
even with the combined efforts of the most powerful countries in the world.
How could the German people ignore or allow the atrocities taking place
directly in front of them?

That
puzzle was resolved for me with jaw-dropping clarity when, in the early
1940s, I saw a stage hypnotist induce people to do crazy and irrational
things on an individual level, much as Hitler’s Germany had accomplished
on a national level, albeit with much more evil consequences. (As I would
later discover, the oft-repeated notion that people cannot be hypnotized
to think and act against their own conscience is utterly untrue.)

Always
a seeking young man, my interest was profoundly sparked by that stage
demonstration. I thought, “Why can’t this power be used to
make people behave in rational instead of irrational ways?” It was
many years before I discovered that life itself exerted hypnotic influences,
and that hypnotic pressures were the principal cause of almost all the
world’s sufferings. The answer, then, did not lie in fighting hypnosis
with more hypnosis—adding additional layers of conditioning on top
of what was already there, but in finding a way to become progressively
dehypnotized and less susceptible to the hypnotic effects of one’s
formative years.

Countless
others have studied this problem, including many profound figures in the
history of religion. One of the most useful studies is Battle for
the Mind, by William Sargant, first published in 1957. In addition
to describing techniques of religious conversion, prisoner interrogation,
political indoctrination, psychotherapy, and the effect of severe stress
situations like combat, Sargant emphasized how suggestible people become
when caught up in states of anger, fear, or exultation—and how they
can be manipulated once such states are begun and sustained.

There
just had to be some kind of counter-hypnotic system, I pondered as a young
man, perhaps what religious people called faith, or listening to one’s
conscience, necessitating no other lawgiver. Something common to all humanity
just had to be the guiding light and the “lamp unto our feet.”
However, this being so, how did we get lost and how might we be found
again? It didn’t take me long to realize that there were powerful
religious and political forces that never wanted us to find that kind
of freedom from the power they have held for thousands of years. Most
puzzling was that entangled people tended to be loyal to their corrupters.
Like dope addicts with their pushers, most people held fast to their systems,
stubbornly defending what they thought of as themselves, which was in
reality a childhood conditioning programmed into them practically from
birth.

So,
in the late 1950s, after many years of using my growing knowledge about
hypnosis to help people, I made three important discoveries that have
guided all my subsequent work.

The
first core discovery was that the root of human problems is that we are
already hypnotized and hypnotizable to varying degrees. Many well-meaning
people in the past who came to this realization in some way had tried
to help others by fighting hypnosis with hypnosis—further hypnotizing
them into a better set of core beliefs and behaviors—perhaps by
converting them hypnotically to a set of religious, ethical or political
beliefs or practices that would improve their lives. I further realized,
however, that wicked people who sensed this weakness in people had applied
hypnotic techniques to make others serve their selfish ends for power,
money or fame—with no intention of helping them ever become free.

Even
converting someone hypnotically to a better set of beliefs and practices
was not enough, because so long as people remained hypnotized, they would
also remain hypnotizable. So another person with hypnotic skill could
come along later and convert them to a very dangerous and unhappy set
of beliefs and practices and lead them into disaster—as Hitler did
to the German people, Stalin did to the Russian people, and as many governments
and leaders are doing presently.

So,
my second important realization was that the fundamental cure to all of
this was not further hypnosis. Instead, I had to discover a way to help
people become de-hypnotized and less susceptible to life’s ongoing
hypnotic influences. Only thus could I help people to become truly free—even
free of any need for me or any other helper once they had been set free
from their hypnotic states and equipped with the tools to avoid being
hypnotized again.

My third
crucial realization came as I explored means to de-hypnotize people and
help them become less suggestible. I realized that what is at the root
of virtually all of our emotional problems, including our suggestibility
and therefore our inability to truly be ourselves, is none other than
our own resentment-much of it buried.

I realized
at a young age why so many Germans during World War II were like those
subjects on the hypnotist’s stage, living in pre-existing hypnotic
states since childhood. Various authorities held the keys to quivering
minds; they alone could reach inside to reawaken and reinforce implanted
identities. Identity reassurance in exchange for submission had to be
the reason why so many fight to the death for the strongest force. The
core of authoritarian power had to be child abuse, but not necessarily
the violent or criminally punished kind, as you will see.

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In 1991,
I re-published the booklet, Brainwashing:
A Synthesis of the Russian Textbook of Psychopolitics. In this
devastating 1930s account, it is clear that Russia, just like Germany,
knew the evil art of subduing the mind. Shadow governments are preceded
by an epidemic of personal and public defamations of noble heroes, demoralization
of the youth leading to irresponsible parenting, relationships and unwanted
children. An atmosphere of fear, uncertainty and strategic shocks will
keep people in line no matter how old they become. Maturity rarely outgrows
such conditioning. In fact, seeing and struggling with it can cause a
hopeless depression and/or an ultimate decision to side with the bully.

Roy Masters—who
in his 80s continues to broadcast the longest-running counseling show
in talk radio history, his internationally syndicated daily radio program
Advice
Line, grew up in pre-WWII England. He started his journey toward
understanding human nature when as a teen he saw a stage hypnotist at
a vaudeville show in Brighton. The hypnotist easily put volunteer subjects
in a spell and made them do outlandish things, like dancing with a broom
and forgetting their own names.

Puzzled by the
hypnotist’s mysterious power, Roy distinctly remembers pondering
the question: “Why can’t hypnotism be used to make people
act sensibly, rather than foolishly?” Inspired by the idea of
harnessing this baffling force for good, he later pursued the art of
hypnotism and established a successful hypnotherapy practice.

After several years
of practice, Masters made his central and pivotal discovery about the
root of people’s emotional problems, addictions and complexes.
He realized that people did not need hypnosis, because their core problem
was that they are already hypnotized—not by a clever stage performer,
but by the stresses, pressures and seductions of daily life.

He used his knowledge
to discover a way to help us become de-hypnotized, and discovered that
the root of the power of negative suggestion lay in our wrong emotional
response, that of resentment. Masters’ remarkably effective exercise,
a simple observation technique called Be Still and Know—is at
the core of his unmatched track record in helping people overcome even
the most serious mental-emotional problems, and is the centerpiece of
a successful program within the U.S. military community (“Patriot
Outreach”) that is helping thousands of military personnel
and their families cope with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

I
realized at a young age why so many Germans during World War II were like
those subjects on the hypnotist’s stage, living in pre-existing
hypnotic states since childhood. Various authorities held the keys to
quivering minds; they alone could reach inside to reawaken and reinforce
implanted identities.